Page 30 of Seizing Mack
“Now, Mack!” Dee whined from the second floor. “Come hereright now. It’s urgent.”
Mack closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Dee’s idea of “urgent” was probably a chip in her gel manicure or, God forbid, a blemish. After a restless night, all Mack wanted to do was have a peaceful cup of coffee on the porch before she went in to work. Was that too much to ask?
Gulping down the last of the brew, she took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she would find. She was glad she’d taken those extra moments when she found Dee standing naked in the guest bathroom wearing nothing but a scowl and shoving an iPhone toward Mack.
“Take a picture right now while I’ve got my morning-skinny going.”
Ah, yes. That magical time after a morning trip to the bathroom and before eating breakfast, when Dee was at her absolute least weight of the day.
“Got your weigh-in today?” Mack guessed. Jay had gotten her in for an initial interview with the modeling agency. As part of that, Delilah was required to undergo a series of check-ins where she was weighed and measured, analyzed for percentage of body fat, and assessed for overall health.
Following standard locker room protocol, Mack tried not to look directly at Dee. Instead, her eyes fell on the dizzying assortment of creams, lotions, and gels covering nearly every surface. Just thinking about the effort involved in using all that stuff made her tired. If that was what it took to be beautiful, Mack was quite content to stick with her plain-Jane regimen.
“Yes. And I amfreaking out! I gained half a pound this week!”
Mack’s eyes moved to the pile of satin thongs and matching push-up bras littering the floor. She’d need to sew about a dozen or so of those tiny patches together to cover her bits. It seemed kind of pointless really. A few postage stamps would work just as well and were a hell of a lot cheaper.
“Wow. A whole half-pound. Should we go tent shopping?”
“Don’t be mean.”
“It’s who I am.”
“Mack, this is serious! What if I don’t get the modeling contract?”
Mack knew Tish well enough to know that a half pound one way or the other certainly wasn’t going to make a difference, but she didn’t bother to say so. Dee was having a moment and wouldn’t listen anyway. Besides, Mack really wasn’t in the mood to blow sunshine up her ass.
“So what if you don’t?”
“What else would I do?”
Well, that was a good question. Dee really wasn’t qualified for anything, and her princess mentally wouldn’t permit any sort of menial labor. “You have a job atSeize,” Mack reminded her, tacking a silentfor nowonto the end. After her father returned and took Dee off her hands, Mack really couldn’t care less what she did.
Delilah actually shuddered, a full-bodied event that rippled from the top of her bleached hair to the tips of her French pedicure. “Man candy aside, you can’t be serious. Doing a Zumba class is hard, Mack. And Iperspire.” She said the word like sweating was a bad thing.
“It is a fitness center, Dee. People go there to work out and yes, they sweat in the process. It’s a good thing.”
“It’s disgusting. A good cleanse a couple of times a month and daily purges accomplish the same thing and require much less effort. Oh, Mack. What am I going to do?”
Mack clenched her teeth together and tried to digest the fact that in Dee’s mind, she hadn’t said or done anything offensive. Was there a more self-absorbed person on the planet?
“Ugh! I never should have had that slice of bread yesterday. Carbs are so evil,” Dee was muttering.
Mack knew better. “Not all carbs are evil, Delilah,” she said on an exhale.
“Well, just look at you, Mack.”
For the briefest of moments, Mack froze. She should have been used to it, but it still hurt. Every freaking time.
“Yeah, look at me.” Try as she might to stop it, some of the pain came through her voice.
Delilah huffed, as ifshewere the one insulted. “God, Mack. You make everything about you. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Yeah, she did. Because Dee wasn’t happy unless everyone else felt like crap. It wasn’t enough that she was every man’s fantasy; she wanted to be every woman’s envy, too.
Mack turned away from the bathroom and started walking down the steps before she said what she really thought.
“Hey. Where are you going? What about my picture?”
Fuck your picture.“Take it yourself,” Mack shot back. “I’m late.”
